Gillibrand Looks to Deliver for Milk Producers

By Leigh Hornbeck, Albany Times Union, N.Y.

Apr. 13–CAMBRIDGE — U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand ventured into traditionally Republican territory with her first bill: federal subsidies for dairy farms.

The freshman Democrat introduced the American Dairy Farmer Protection Act on the House floor last month. She met with reporters Thursday at the Ziehm family farm along the Hoosick River in Washington County. Her appearance there was another sign that Gillibrand — who won a stunning upset over longtime Congressman John Sweeney — plans to push hard to keep her seat in this traditionally Republican district, which is dotted with dairy farms.

Gillibrand serves on the House Agriculture Committee as well as the powerful Armed Services Committee.

Appointment to that committee is a sign that Gillibrand, a lawyer who was also a prodigious fundraiser, is taken seriously by the House’s Democratic leadership.

The Ziehms’ operation is one of the largest in a region where farming is under mounting pressure from development and economics. With a herd of 625 cows and $2.4 million in sales last year, the fourth-generation family farm has benefited from the price supports that the bill would renew and bolster.

Gillibrand’s director of communications, Rachel McEneny, said the congresswoman realizes she chose a tough issue for her first bill.

"It will be an uphill battle to garner support for the bill and to make it matter to representatives across the country," McEneny said. "She wanted to do something for dairy farmers."

"Historically New York has had little representation on the Agriculture Committee because they haven’t asked," Gillibrand said, standing in the Ziehm’s machinery shed, next to a huge hay mower.

The 20th Congressional District hugs the Hudson River from Essex County in the north to Dutchess in the south and runs west to Delaware and Otsego counties.

Brian Ziehm, 32, the oldest brother, said he’s impressed by Gillibrand’s energy but he expects she’ll have a hard time getting a bill passed that helps New York farmers.

"In this country, agriculture means the corn belt," Ziehm said. "The ag committee is full of Midwesterners."

Gillibrand’s bill renews the Milk Income Loss Contract, first introduced in 2001. Farmers are paid a subsidy when milk prices drop below $16.94 per hundredweight, or 100 pounds, which is how milk is sold on the market. Now, farmers are paid 34 percent of the difference. Gillibrand’s bill raises the amount to 45 percent. The Bush administration measure would lower it to 20 percent. Gillibrand wants to double the cap — right now, farmers lose the subsidy after they ship 2.4 million pounds of milk, about what 120 cows produce in a year.

Gillibrand also wants to see a price floor reinstituted, so the price that producers must be paid for their milk never drops below $15.58, adjusted for inflation.

After a high of $20 per hundredweight in 2005, milk prices dropped to an average of $13 in 2006, Ziehm said. In recent months it’s climbed to $15, but it costs the Ziehm brothers $16.50 per hundredweight to produce the milk.

The family farm is named Tiashoke, an Indian word for "the meeting of the waters." It opened in 1966, when Frank Ziehm and his father fled development pressure on their farm on Krumkill Road in Albany and moved 34 cows to the Cambridge hamlet of Buskirk. As children, the Ziehm brothers never imagined their bucolic countryside would ever hold anything but farms. Now, they are protecting their property by selling the development rights on the land to an open space preservation group. Money from the sale also represents Frank and Terry Ziehm’s retirement.

"I don’t want to hear ‘big versus small’ when it comes to farms," Eric Ziehm said. "We’re all farming, and without any one part of the sector, we all lose."

Hornbeck can be reached at 581-8438 or by e-mail at lhornbeck@timesunion.com.

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Copyright (c) 2007, Albany Times Union, N.Y.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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